introduction

•

Searching for ephemeral freshwater jellyfish beneath 400-million-year-old 
limestone at Mead's Quarry Lake.

"All is in flux, nothing stays still." 

Heraclitus, Greek philosopher (540 BC - 480 BC) 

The events that occur in Ephemeral by Nature happened over the past 17 years and mirror the time I have spent as a naturalist at Ijams Nature Center in South Knoxville. Today, Ijams is a nonprofit education center. Carrying on the tradition of H.P and Alice Ijams, we have been connecting people to nature since the summer of 1923.

Along with the stories in my first UT Press book, Natural Histories, the happenings came and went, ephemeral all. Six years ago, I was sitting in a canoe alone on Mead's Quarry Lake watching freshwater jellyfish undulating just below the surface of the water all around me. 

"Can there be anything more ephemeral?" I asked myself while admiring the penny size jellies live out their short medusa stage.

The paradox struck me. Although the flooded quarry pit was dug during the 1900s, the rock cliffs that surrounded me were Ordovician in origin, deposited over 400-million-years ago.  

Therein lies the nub for this narrative. For the answer, of course, is that all of life is short lived.  It was as fleeting for Heraclitus as it is for me.

"All the world's a stage, And all the men and women [and jellyfish] merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts," wrote the Bard of Avon in As You Like It.

Luckily, I have a patchwork of memories and oodles of photographs of the past 17 years, far too many to ever be printed in the book itself. So to the left you will find photo albums that represent the chapters of Ephemeral. 

Thank you for reading. 

And thank you UT Press. 

Freshwater jellyfish are near invisible penny-sized miracles of life. 
Finding them in this 25-acre lake can be astonishingly difficult. 

•

owls

Owls are ephemeral. Wizards of the night. Watchful. Be glad you are not a mouse. Sometimes you may hear one, but seldom see it. Haunting hoots from high, hilly places. That's an owl.  

I have been extremely lucky over the past two decades to have worked with several injured and non-releasable owls. The first time I walked around outside with an owl on a glove at the nature center was 4 July 1998. You do not forget such happenings, so the title of this photo album could easily be "The owls I have known" and that one in Cades Cove. 

Searching for a short-eared owl in January 2015 with Rachael Eliot.

Rachael Eliot on her birthday, 11 January 2015, hoping to add a short-eared owl 
to her life list on Hyatt Lane in Cades Cove. 

It was late on the cold, clear day, the sun would be setting soon, long shadows stretched towards the east. 

And since I do not have a photo of that owl, here are 
some other remembrance photos.

Sugar, an albino or leucistic barred owl under the care of animal rehabber Lynne McCoy. 

Paparazzi swarmed the "Sugar" on Lynne McCoy's arm.  

Owl-ology class at Ijams, January 2016

The first owl I ever worked with, a red-phase eastern screech-owl, 1998

Same screech-owl as above

Gray phase eastern screech-owl

Barred owl with a very damaged wing. Ijams cared for her for years.  

Same barred owl as above

Elderly great horned owl Ijams cared for for years.

Same great horned owl as above

jack-in-the-pulpit

Jack-in-the-pulpit

Since April 2011, Ijams volunteers Bob and Lynne Davis have led a spring wildflower walkabout for the nature center to nearby William Hastie Natural Area in South Knoxville. They search for what are collectively called the "spring ephemerals" and their specialty is the odd little flowers (like Cumberland spurge and American pimpernel) that are so underwhelming they rarely appear in field guides.

With something over 2500 flowering plants in Tennessee, an ID can sometimes be difficult.

Picking the best date to go on the wildflower walkabout weeks in advance is always challenging plus there are the persistent April showers.

Ijams volunteer naturalists Bob Davis, Cheri and Chip Hall, Lynne Davis and Nick Stahlman. 

Main entrance into William Hastie Natural Area in South Knoxville. 

Wildflower group in 2012. 

Wildflower group in 2015. 

American pimpernel

Solomon seal plume 

Daisy fleabane

Doll's eye

Foamflower

Glade phlox

Lyre-leafed sage

Smooth Solomon seal

Trout lily and bloodroot

Virginia bluebells

Appalachian pandas

I am not sure if I am allowed to have a favorite chapter. But, just between you and I, it has to be the one about Appalachian pandas.

It was great fun to write, its short 18 pages cover roughly 4 to 7 million years. Along the way I met Dr. Steven Wallace at the Gray Fossil Site and Sarah Glass red panda curator at Zoo Knoxville. I also learned the story of Spandeau and Wicket—the two young pandas above—from Karen Webster, small mammal keeper at the Knoxville Zoo at the time. She took care of them when they were both cute young cubs.

“Back then, I knew I had a special job. I’d drive to work thinking, wow, no one in Tennessee is going to work right now to feed red pandas,” recalled Webster. “They’d see me coming up the trail and start pacing back and forth. They’d be manic by the time I opened up to feed them. I’d go in rain, snow, or sleet to take care of them."

Spandeau, one week old August 1987

Webster feeding Spandeau, 1987

Wicket with animal tech Carol Newsom, 1987

Gray Fossil Site, 2016

My sister, Darlene Brett in front of dig site, 2016

Dr. Steven Wallace inside Gray museum, 2016

Exhibit of Appalachian panda skeleton 

Skull of ancestral panda compared to modern day red panda

Bristol's Appalachian panda skull and other fossilized bones

Dr. Steven Wallace with two panda femurs

Zoo Knoxville's Sarah Glass, curator of red pandas, with Ijams' Lauren Bird, 2016

Red panda named Lincoln, 2016

Glass feeding Lincoln, 2016

Ijams' Lauren Bird feeding Lincoln, 2016

Author feeding Lincoln, 2016

Sarah Glass with 
Wicket's family tree